1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for automatically sending messages to designated transmission destinations by way of a communication network, and to a service system for this method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In communication by, for example, telephone or email, the sender cannot know the conditions under which the communication partner receives a message. A communication partner may not be in or may be occupied with other business and thus unable to directly see or hear a message. Alternatively, a message may be sent that is not appropriate for the communication partner's situation, such as when a private message is sent during work hours. In order to avoid such situations, the sender of a message must check the communication partner's schedule in advance, infer the partner's situation, and consider the time for sending a message.
In recent years, however, a presence information service is known as one information service by which information indicating a user's situation, such as whether the user is at work or the current location of the user, is disclosed in real time on a network by way of each of the communication terminals of a plurality of users so that people such as acquaintances of the user can check the user's current circumstances. By referring to this presence information, senders can more accurately gauge the situation of a communication partner. In the prior art, when a sender wished to consider the communication partner's circumstances and then send a message by telephone or email at an appropriate time, the sender was required to wait for the arrival of an appropriate time as inferred from the schedule of the communication partner and then perform transmission operations, or to monitor presence information and then perform transmission operations when the circumstances appeared suitable for sending the message. However, waiting for a communication partner's circumstances to reach a suitable state to send a message involved considerable time and trouble for the sender. In addition, a sender's circumstances are also subject to changes, and not only is performing transmission operations at an appropriate time difficult in some cases, but it is also possible for a sender to forget to transmit.
One means that can be considered for solving these problems involves the use of a device that monitors a communication partner's circumstances and then transmits a message when conditions that have been set are satisfied. As an example of the prior art that is relevant to this solution, a device is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No.162033/98 in which a mobile terminal is provided with a mechanism for measuring the time, location, atmospheric pressure, and temperature, and in which a device sends messages to mobile terminals that have been designated beforehand when the state of the mobile terminal as measured by this mechanism attains a set state. Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No.2002-315053 also discloses a mobile communication system that detects the current time and the location of a mobile communication terminal and that transmits messages when the time or location meets set conditions.
Nevertheless, the devices of the prior art that are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No.162033/98 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-315053 are not always able to adequately meet the particular demands of practicality. For example, a sender who wishes to send a message that relates to a private matter to a transmission partner after the partner finishes work, may encounter difficulties in specifying the appropriate transmission time by merely setting the time or general location of the transmission partner.
It is thus the object of the present invention to provide an automatic message sending method and a service system for this method that allow transmission of a message by telephone or email at an appropriate time considering the state of a transmission partner without requiring the sender to wait for an appropriate time for sending the message. It is another object of the present invention to provide an automatic message sending method and service system for this method that can be variously applied, for example, as an alarm that reports the attainment of designated states in various situations of daily life.